War troubles black community
A small group of men in an Oakland Park Flea Market barber shop, preening and primping near a television set locked on CNN, didn't need much prodding to clash over the war in Iraq.
( BY ANDREA ROBINSON AND SONJI JACOBS, arobinson@herald.com, 04/01/2003 03:01 AM EST)

U.S. readies key ground attack
Push through Karbala Gap would open access to Baghdad
The first decisive battle of the war in Iraq may come in a place called the Karbala Gap. After days of pounding the Medina Division of Iraq's Republican Guard with air power and artillery, the U.S. 3rd Infantry Division is preparing to launch the war's first major ground attack against Saddam Hussein's best soldiers.
( BY DREW BROWN, S. THORNE HARPER AND STEVEN THOMMA, Knight Ridder News Service, 04/01/2003 03:01 AM EST)

Airstrikes jolt Baghdad
After successive days of pummeling the symbols of President Saddam Hussein's rule, U.S. and British forces have shifted the attention of their nearly two-week air assault on Baghdad to Iraqi communication facilities, wrecking telephone exchanges, television and radio transmitters and government media offices in the heart of the capital.
( BY ANTHONY SHADID, Washington Post Service, 04/01/2003 03:01 AM EST)

U.S. ready to pay a `high price'
American commanders are prepared to suffer a high number of U.S. combat deaths during the battle for Baghdad and won't leave Iraq until Saddam Hussein is toppled, a senior official at U.S Central Command said Monday.
( BY PETER SMOLOWITZ, Knight Ridder News Service, 04/01/2003 03:01 AM EST)

Tough, productive day for Marines in central Iraq
Arms caches are seized; civilians cheer U.S. troops
The 1st Battalion, 4th Marines, stopped Sunday beside a sign that said: ''Welcome to the Governate of Wasit.'' The greeting, however, was a bit too warm: Over the next 12 hours Iraqi fighters fired rocket-propelled grenades, mortars, artillery and AK-47 rifles at the Marines.
( BY ANDREA GERLIN AND PATRICK PETERSON, Knight Ridder News Service, 04/01/2003 03:01 AM EST)

Strategy shifting to a slower pace
The conflict is now expected to resemble the 1991 Gulf War
Until now the new U.S. war in Iraq might be termed ''Rumsfeld's war,'' executed in a manner consistent with the defense secretary's vision of the future of the U.S. military -- heavily reliant on air power, intelligence information, Special Operations troops and fast movement by regular ground forces, ideally all acting simultaneously to multiply their effect.
( BY THOMAS E. RICKS, Washington Post Service, 04/01/2003 09:05 AM EST)

Low-level members of Baath Party arrested
But some suspects are innocent, Iraqis say
British coalition forces are sweeping up hundreds of low-level members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party throughout southern Iraq to stop guerrilla attacks and win the confidence of average Iraqis.
( BY SUDARSAN RAGHAVAN, Knight Ridder News Service, 04/01/2003 03:01 AM EST)

He followed mom into Army service, died on battlefield
Michael Russell Creighton Weldon took after his mother when he decided to enlist in the U.S. Army last year. His mother, Sgt. Maj. Jean Weldon, had recently retired after two decades' service.
( From Herald Staff and Wire Reports, 04/01/2003 03:01 AM EST)

U.S. troops tighten siege of key town
Soldiers from the Army's 82nd Airborne Division captured more than 50 Iraqi soldiers and civilians on Monday, including one man dressed in old U.S. Army desert camouflage, as they pressed their siege of a small Euphrates River city where Iraqi paramilitary forces have been attacking U.S. forces' main supply line.
( BY MARK JOHNSON, Knight Ridder News Service, 04/01/2003 03:01 AM EST)

Some oil firms could be barred
The Defense Department is drafting a plan that would bar major international oil companies from helping reconstruct Iraq's oil fields if they already do business in neighboring Iran, according to U.S. officials and Middle East analysts.
( BY WARREN P. STROBEL, wstrobel@krwashington.com, 04/01/2003 03:01 AM EST)

Air Force launches guidance satellite key to troops
Sending more high-tech resources from Florida to help the war effort in Iraq, the Air Force on Monday evening launched the second satellite in less than two months for the Global Positioning System (GPS) from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.
( BY PHIL LONG, plong@herald.com, 04/01/2003 09:20 AM EST)

Cruise-missile stock rapidly being reduced
In the first 12 days of the war in Iraq, the United States fired off nearly one-quarter of all the Tomahawk cruise missiles ever built, a pace that clearly cannot continue, especially if a large stock of missiles is to be held in reserve for potential conflicts in other parts of the world.
( BY TOM INFIELD, tinfield@krwashington.com, 04/01/2003 03:01 AM EST)

Mexico to take helm of a fractured U.N. Security Council
Mexico takes over the presidency of the U.N. Security Council today, hoping to heal some of the council's recent wounds and begin to repair relations with the United States, soured by Mexico's refusal to support the invasion of Iraq.
( BY SUSANA HAYWARD, Knight Ridder News Service, 04/01/2003 03:01 AM EST)

Group ties to al Qaeda reported
A U.S.-led assault on a compound controlled by an extremist Islamic group turned up a list of names of suspected militants living in the United States and what may be the strongest evidence yet linking the group to al Qaeda, coalition commanders said Monday.
( BY DAFNA LINZER AND BORZOU DARAGAHI, Associated Press, 04/01/2003 03:01 AM EST)

New attack style plagues forces in Afghanistan
Afghan rebels stepped up their guerrilla campaign against foreign troops, hitting U.S. bases across the east with mortar and rocket fire, officials said Monday.
( BY TODD PITMAN, Associated Press, 04/01/2003 03:01 AM EST)

Halting Iran nuclear effort 'high priority' for U.S. after war
When war ends in Iraq, the Bush administration will give ''extremely high priority'' to halting a secret nuclear weapons program in neighboring Iran, a senior U.S. diplomat said Monday.
( BY TIM JOHNSON, tjohnson@herald.com, 04/01/2003 03:01 AM EST)

Trucks with U.N. aid cross Iraqi borders
The first wartime U.N. humanitarian aid, a few truckloads of food and water, trickled across Iraq's borders from Turkey and Kuwait, U.N. agencies reported Monday.
( From Herald Wire Services, 04/01/2003 03:01 AM EST)

Iraq Update
U.S.-led troops fought pitched battles with the Republican Guard within 50 miles of the capital. Coalition warplanes pounded the city and dozens of other Iraqi positions in advance of the battle for Baghdad.
( 04/01/2003 03:01 AM EST)

N. Korea test fires short-range missile
(AP) -- North Korea test-fired a ground-to-ship missile today, Japanese defense officials said. The test came just days after Japan launched two satellites into orbit that will help keep watch over North Korea's weapons programs. After that launch, the communist state threatened to test-fire a missile.
( 04/01/2003 03:01 AM EST)

Hong Kong seals off building to slow illness
An alarming jump of new cases of a mystery flu-like disease in a Hong Kong apartment complex prompted authorities to seal off one building Monday, as health officials in Hong Kong continued an uphill battle to control the disease.
( BY DIRK BEVERIDGE, Associated Press, 04/01/2003 03:01 AM EST)

600 Muslim victims of Srebrenica massacre receive burial
POTOCARI, Bosnia-Herzegovina -- The first identified victims of the 1995 Srebrenica slaughter -- Europe's worst civilian massacre since World War II -- were buried Monday at the site where their relatives last saw them alive.
( From Herald Wire Services, 04/01/2003 03:01 AM EST)

MIAMI AREA
Soviet space agency pioneer
(AP) -- Lt. Gen. Kerim Kerimov, one of fathers of the Soviet space program, died on Saturday in Moscow after a brief illness at age 85, Russian mission control said Monday.
( Houston Chronicle, 04/01/2003 03:01 AM EST)

International Roundup
MACEDONIA EUROPEAN UNION FORCE REPLACES NATO MISSION SKOPJE -- The European Union took over peacekeeping duties in ethnically divided Macedonia on Monday, a first military mission that will test the EU's ability to handle trouble spots without help from NATO or the United States.
( From Herald Wire Services, 04/01/2003 03:01 AM EST)